Su-Laine Yeo Vancouver User Experience Group November, 2007 Dynamics of Wikipedia esentation is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alik http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Dynamics Of Wikipedia
May 06, 2015
Wikipedia, the encylopedia that anyone can edit, “can never work in theory, only in practice.” Accounting for one in every 200 page views on the Internet, it has become a part of our everyday lives. Wikipedia is changing the way we think about the economics of the web, the potential and the pitfalls of engaging the masses, and the role of professional information architects in a world in which content arrives from literally every direction.
In this session, we’ll explore the nuts-and-bolts of how the Wikipedia project works. Who writes Wikipedia, and why? How does the English Wikipedia maintain quality, consistent tagging, and coherent organization across over two million articles? What happens when contributors disagree? We will take a tour behind the scenes at Wikipedia to learn what happens when users are encouraged to - as they say on Wikipedia… “be bold.”
In this session, we’ll explore the nuts-and-bolts of how the Wikipedia project works. Who writes Wikipedia, and why? How does the English Wikipedia maintain quality, consistent tagging, and coherent organization across over two million articles? What happens when contributors disagree? We will take a tour behind the scenes at Wikipedia to learn what happens when users are encouraged to - as they say on Wikipedia… “be bold.”
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Su-Laine YeoVancouver User Experience Group
November, 2007
Dynamics of Wikipedia
This presentation is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
OverviewHow does it all work?
Who writes for Wikipedia, and why?How does the site keep vandalism and spam
away?What happens when contributors disagree? How does the site keep articles consistent
and organized?
AgendaWhat is Wikipedia?Contributing: Part IVandalism and spamConflict and cultureContributing: Part II
Please ask questions along the way!
What is Wikipedia?
VisionA free, neutral encyclopedia that anyone
can edit
“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.”
– Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales
The global project253 languages2 million+ articles in English5 million articles in languages other than
English, accounting for half of all trafficFreely -licensed image, video, and sound
files on Wikimedia Commons are used across languages
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias_by_language_family
Size of the English Wikipedia
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Size_of_English_Wikipedia_in_August_2007.svg
Who’s who
MediaWiki softwareWikimedia FoundationJimmy (Jimbo) Wales, founder,
leader, and benevolent dictator
5.8 million registered accounts for volunteer contributors
Lots of edits by unregistered users
Wikimedia FoundationRuns the servers; hardware costs are 60%
of its budgetNo ads or paid subscribersAnnual revenues $1.5 million (June 2006) Fewer than 10 full-time employeesSister projects to Wikipedia: Wiktionary,
Wikispecies, Wikiversity, Wikinews…
Wikipedia statistics Among top 10 most visited websites70% of traffic is from search enginesCited in over 100 U.S. court rulings
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/technology/29wikipedia.html?ex=1327726800&en=92bbe5fe41874778&ei=5090
Key policiesWikipedia is an encyclopedia; its goals go
no furtherFree contentNeutral point of viewAttribution to reliable sources
Most viewed articles
Source: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts for Sept 07
Most viewed articles (cont’d)
Most viewed articles (cont’d)
Unusual articlesExploding whaleHeavy metal umlautCosmic latteAnti-Barney humorFive-second rulePassenger train toiletsSociety for the Prevention of Calling
Sleeping Car Porters “George”0.999...
Contributing: Part I
“So fix it.” - A Wikipedia saying
Contributing: OverviewEditing a sentenceWikitext
HeadingsLinksBulleted listsTemplatesSignatures
Accounts and privacy
Get an accountEditing with an account is MORE private
than editing without oneDon’t use your real name
You can change your username laterYou can identify yourself in less permanent
ways
User pages
Wikiscanner
http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/
Vandals and spammers
Addressing vandalismAutomated vandalism reversion (bots)Recent Changes patrolWatchlists
Semi-protect heavily-vandalised pagesCompletely protect high-visibility pagesWarn vandalsBlock repeat offenders
Recent Changes patrol
Reverting
User contribution history
Vandalism warnings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:208.67.142.93
Blocks
Administrators~1400 administrators in EnglishBlock and unblock usersSemi-protect pages (lock pages from being
edited by unregistered and new users) Protect pages (lock pages from being
edited)Edit protected pagesDelete and undelete page histories
Addressing spam“No-follow” on external linksSpam blacklistAs with vandalism: revert, warn user, block
persistent offenders
Other obviously-bad editsBlatant advertisingCopyright violationLibelHoaxComplete bullocks
Conflict and Culture
“When someone just writes 'f**k, f**k, f**k', we just fix it, laugh and move on. But the difficult social issues are the borderline cases — people who do some good work, but who are also a pain in the neck.”
– Jimbo Wales
ConflictWhen contributors disagree in good faith,
there are procedures for working through disputes.
The Wikipedia community has final say on most things
… The community is: people who have a history of good contributions and who show up for the debate
What not to do
Dispute resolutionAfter being bold:Discuss on the article Talk page and/or the
other person’s Talk pageThird OpinionMediationRequest for CommentArbitrationIntervention by Jimbo
Content policies and guidelinesWhat are reliable sources?What is an acceptable External Link?Is company XYZ notable enough for an
article?Should the article title be “Giraffe” or
“Giraffes”?Is it “program” or “programme”?
Conduct policies and guidelinesBe civilAssume good faithDon’t edit warWrite for the enemyIgnore all rulesDon’t use Wikipedia for self-promotion
Corporate advocacy and self-promotion
Includes adding excessive links to your own company’s website
If in doubt about possible conflict of interest, suggest changes on the article’s Talk page or on one of the noticeboards
Talk pages
Dispute resolution principlesFocus on how to improve the articlesWiden the conflict; ask for third-party
viewpointsDon’t wikilawyerDiscuss rather than vote
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deleted_articles_with_freaky_titleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Pooky_the_Teddy_Bear
Controversy is often goodMotivates people to improve articlesRaises awareness of the need for quality
sourcingLeads to inclusion of multiple viewpoints
and nuances in articlesBuilds community
Problem behaviourPoint-of-view pushing; political and
nationalist block votingEdit warringPersistent corporate advocacyFraudulent use of multiple accounts
(sockpuppetry)
Problem behaviour (cont’d)Problem users can be banned from a topic
or from all of WikipediaBans are difficult to enforceShort supply of neutral people who are
patient enough to deal with problematic behaviour
“The takeaway message I'm getting here is ‘only an admin with a hole in his head willingly gets involved in Israel-Palestine articles.’ ” - a Wikipedia administrator
Biographies of Living Persons rulesConsider privacyNegative material has more rigorous
inclusion requirementsImmediately remove unsourced or poorly
sourced negative or controversial materialAvoid discussion
IA for two million articles
Few information types: encyclopedia articles, lists, disambiguation pagesNo essays or how-to articlesNo point-of-view forking of articles
Extensive guidelines on:naming conventionsrefactoring long articles, merging similar
articlesuse of categories
IA for two million articles (cont’d)
Relatively simple markup
Extensive use of templates
Constant refactoring
Templates
CategoriesThere are guidelines for creating categoriesBe bold in creating categoriesCategories are subject to refactoring
Adding and using categories
Summary: Conflict and culturePolicies and guidelinesCulture is oriented towards trust,
discussion, and generating consensusConflict can build community and often
leads to better articlesMost articles are not controversial. Usually,
good-faith edits stickDecentralized management of information
architecture
Contributing: Part II
“I have found working with a bunch of like minded folks on an article or wikiproject when it kicks into top gear one of the most inspiring things, the rapid-fire editing of an article gunning toward FA status as writer's blocks are sequentially blasted out of the way is just amazing to witness via the diffs/hists.”
–Wikipedia editor “Casliber”
Contribute by…Writing about what you’re interested inImproving the writing of othersCiting sourcesCategorizing and organizing articles Translating articlesContributing photographs and artworkReviewing and commenting on articlesMaintenance: removing vandalism, spam,
and triviaHelping to resolve disputes
"We can no longer feel satisfied and happy when we see these (article) numbers going up.... We should continue to turn our attention away from growth and towards quality.“
- Jimbo Wales
Why contribute?Improve your skills in:WritingEditingHaving your work editedConflict resolution and group dynamicsUnderstanding copyrightWiki technology
SummaryFree encyclopedia written by volunteersBe boldGet an account with a fake name; don’t
promote commercial interestsRevert, warn, and block vandals and
spammersPolicies, guidelines, and dispute resolution
systems exist for controversial issuesDistributed decision-making scales well for
information architecture
The radical projectAlmost no co-ordination of effort2% of users (1400 people) make 73.4% of
edits0.7% of users (524 people) make 50% of
edits
But… people who make very, very few edits write most of Wikipedia’s content
… Your earliest edits will probably be your most valuable ones
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Be_bold.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Be_bold.png
Related Documents
![Dynamics and diversity of online community activitiesphotos, and Wikipedia[.org] for encyclopedia articles. To ... Dynamics and diversity of online community activities all users network](https://static.cupdf.com/doc/110x72/5ea7edeed67c745ff316d865/dynamics-and-diversity-of-online-community-photos-and-wikipediaorg-for-encyclopedia.jpg)
